Super idler and drop arms come in 2 flavors?

Page 8-19 in the bently manual shows the steering components for a super beetle. The idler(pitman?) arm on my 73 is different than the picture without the steering stops and the stops are on my drop arm instead.

Are the two types compatible?.. IOW, if I got a drop arm without stops and the idler arm assembly with the stops, is it a bolt on swap? I don't like how the stops on the drop arm chew metel off the chassis.

I wrecked my drop arm trying to unfreeze it from the center tie rod anyways. So I need a new one and need to redo the bushing in the idler too.. So I may as well consider the different style.

Reply to
David Gravereaux
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There are actually four different types of drop arm. You have the latest version, which came with the stops, whilst the other three did not. You can swap to the older system but you have to be careful, as one of the earlier drop arms will not fit your steering gear. If you check on the splined area of your drop arm, there will be three 'squared' notches which match up with two 'squared splines on the gear. Either the early drop arm with the same pattern or the one with three sets of 'teeth' will fit. The arm that has only one 'squared' notch will not fit.

Reply to
Peter

"There are actually four different types of drop arm. You have the latest version, which came with the stops, whilst the other three did not. You can swap to the older system but you have to be careful, as one of the earlier drop arms will not fit your steering gear. "

It's probably worth mentioning that the new steering boxes offered by top-line parts do not have any 'different sized splines' as mentioned in the bentley. Nor did my original VW box on my 74 super, but the drop arm did have several squared-off splines on the inside of the drop arm. On the new top-line boxes you have to manually calculate where the center of travel is and bolt the drop arm on at that point.

Chris

Reply to
Hal

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